Wikipedia, as we know, is a 21st century phenomenon. But in the world of Karnataka Sangeeta, I think the concept started little earlier. The 80’s and 90’s of the 20th century were witness to the growth of newsgroups, and other fora about Indian classical music (rec.music.indian.classical, and later other classical music portals such as www.forumhub.com, www.carnatica.net, www.rasikas.org, www.karnatik.com, and now defunct sangeetham.com) have been the happening places after the internet became part of everyone’s life after the mid 1990s.
One name has stood out during these last 10-20 years in these internet karnataka sangeetha circles. This is a name that has been the musical-sahitya-wiki for anyone who is looking for the lyric of a song. Did you catch a new song in a concert you attended? Do you want to know the composer of a kriti that you have learnt, but have no idea who the composer is? The answer is a few keystrokes away. All you need to do is ask this question in one of the music fora. Depending on where you are located on this planet you will get an answer within 12 hours. Who is behind it? Unlike the wikipedia where there are thousands of editors adding articles, this is work of a single man, who has collected lyrics of songs in several languages (like Telugu, Samskrita, Kannada, Tamizh, Malayalam, Hindi) that are performed in south indian classical style.
He is Lakshman. Lakshman Ragade. He is an one-man help-desk answering your questions about any song – it’s raga or lyrics, or composer, you name it. Do you need the notation for a song? He might give you that too. Today if there are websites such as www.karnatik.com, and http://www.rasikas.org/wiki/ hosting lyrics of hundreds of compositions, they owe a lot to this marvellouly helpful person called Lakshman.
That’s why I said at the beginning – Lakshmanam namaami rasikapriyam – “I bow to Lakshmana, beloved of conniosseurs of music“.
Over the last 12-15 years I have posted hunderds of requests about songs, and each time I have got what I wanted very quickly. So have hundreds of music lovers like me.
What do I know about Lakshman? Almost nothing. I beleive he lives somewhere in Cananda. May be in Toronto. I have never met him. I have not even seen his picture. And same is the situation with hundreds of rasikas like me. He has no personal gain from his service to other music lovers (except may be occassional corrections to the lyrics from people who speak a specific language, if there are any errors in the lyrics he has posted). But he has continued to do this service to music. Even when there are repeat requests I have never seen him to take offense to that.
So when I read the news few days ago that Sri Lakshman received the second annual Rasikapriya award from Sangeethapriya, another forum of lovers of south indian classical music (www.sangeethapriya.org), I can’t tell how overjoyed I was!(http://www.rasikas.org/viewtopic.php?id=4021). I am as happy as I would be if I bagged this award 🙂
I am sure I am not the only one to have these feelings towards Sri Lakshman. But I may be the first one to do a blog post about him 🙂 . Like Lakshmana from Ramayana, who was a shadow of Lord Rama and followed him everywhere, I see Sri Lakshman as the unseen shadow following every rasika on the internet, and provide help whenever needed.
Once again, I have just one thing to say.
Lakshmanam namaami rasikapriyam!
ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಣಮ್ ನಮಾಮಿ ರಸಿಕಪ್ರಿಯಮ್ !!
लक्ष्मणम् नमामि रसिकप्रियम् !!!
-neelanjana
10 comments
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 14, 2007 at 7:57 ಅಪರಾಹ್ನ
arasi
Thank you for your accolade to Lakshman Ragde who like AnjanEyA brings rasikAs any song that they request as swiftly as you can imagine. He is a man of selfless service when it comes to CM.
Lakshman receives this year’s sangeethapriya award. We have to appreciate Rasikapriya for awarding last year’s award, their very first, to Dr.Srikanth, scholar and an impressive composer. If at this young age he can shine in his erudition, in his knowledge of music and his ability in composing, I wonder what all he is going to achieve in the coming years.
Lakshman Ragde, needless to say, is another person who richly deserves this award. For years, he has been gathering known and unknown kritis and has preserved them for posterity. His work goes on. The way he shares these riches is what has endeared him to all rasikAs.
We salute him for his tremendous work.
@arasi
Welcome to my blog!
I am sure there are scores of others who feel in the same way!
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 15, 2007 at 7:56 ಫೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ
srkris
Thanks for conveying all our feelings towards Lakshman ji through this blog post.
@srkris
Welcome to my page. I am delighted to be the messenger 🙂
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 15, 2007 at 5:47 ಅಪರಾಹ್ನ
TVG
Thanks for sharing the views about Sri Lakshmanjee. For selfless service, the awards would trace them one day or the other. Sri Srini and his team members of Sangeethapriya took the right decision to award this year’s Rasikapriya.
Regards,
TVG.
@TVG
Welcome to my blog. And I want to specially thank you for all those wonderful concerts on sangeethapriya 🙂
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 15, 2007 at 7:46 ಅಪರಾಹ್ನ
R B Subramanian
The article about shri Lakshman is thought provoking. It is amazing to note about the service being rendered by Shri Lakshman. The mail Id ‘luzchurch’ probably misleads every body to think that he lives in chennai, India. If possible, the organizers of the award can get his photo and share with all the rasikas.
r b subramanian
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 15, 2007 at 8:51 ಅಪರಾಹ್ನ
VS MANJUNATH
We pray almighty to bestow everything to Dear Lakshmanji who is an encyclopedia in karnatik Music.
My first intercation was much before I became a member of rasika.com, I was frantically looking for the lyrics of ‘Ananda Natesha’ of Ramaswami Sivan in Thodi, when my request was passed on to Lakshmanji, immediately, instantly,I got an email reply having the lyrics. I was overjoyed. Since, then I must have requested for many many lyrics, I have got all of them instantly from Dear Lakshmanji. This noble service of Lakshmanji is unparalelled.
On behalf of Carnatic Music Lovers, I take this oppurtunity to wish Lakshmanji all the very best.
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 17, 2007 at 4:50 ಫೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ
cmlover (naryanan)
Nice spontaneous comment and appreciation of Sri Lakshman Ragde. He is not just a collector of CM kritis but is indeed a connoiseur. From time to time he comments on ragas and kritis which reveal his scholarship and depth of understanding. He is akin to Dr. Johnson who invented the ‘dictionary’, in that his searchable ‘Ultimate Index’ is the bible for CM research workers to trace the origin of all known CM kritis. He goes to the corners of the wold ferretting out rare compositions and shares them with the performers and Rasikas.
As so many of you have already said, by honouring him CM itself is honoured!
@cmlover
Welcome to my blog. I can only imagine how much time and effort he must have spent to become the human dictionary he is.
Being a ‘canada vAsi’, if you know more about him which can be shared with us, please do so.
-neelanjana
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 17, 2007 at 7:26 ಫೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ
kssuresh
Like someone observed, the Rasikapriya award has honoured itself by its being given to Sri Lakshman Ragade. As a visitor to rasikas.org now and then, I have been amazed at the depth of knowledge of Shri Lakshman. Great to know a little bit more about the selfless soul. Thanks very much.
@kssuresh,
Wecome. Actually Sangeethapriya has a difficult task. Similar to the incident where poets were counted staring with kALidAsa, and then the ring finger had to be satisfied with the name anAmikA! The first two rasikapriya choices have been so good, and I thats’s why I say they have a very difficult task ashead!
-neelanjana
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 17, 2007 at 7:36 ಫೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ
Arunk
I am one of the many who has also benefited from Sri Lakshman’s benevolence.
I am always impressed by his ever-ready nature to help any requests for sahitya. And if someone want’s notation, he scans and sends it to their email address immediately. You see “sent to your email address” or “your email address is not working – please give me a proper email address so that I can send it to you” very soon after the after the request was put up. That is just amazing.
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ನವೆಂಬರ್ 22, 2007 at 12:59 ಅಪರಾಹ್ನ
Lakshman
Thank you all for the kind words and good wishes.
In response to the many messages posted on rasikapriya forum, I have posted a belated response since I was out of town when the award was announced. You can see it here:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/rasikapriya-dot-net/message/16292
Lakshman
@Lakshman
Welcome to my page! My e-mail to you (@luzchurch) had bounced. So, here is my personal congratulations once again!
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ಫೆಬ್ರವರಿ 11, 2009 at 5:24 ಅಪರಾಹ್ನ
ಬಂದೆವಯ್ಯಾ ಗೋವಿಂದಶೆಟ್ಟಿ! « ಅಲ್ಲಿದೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆ
[…] I had heard about this song before, but never heard anyone sing it. As always, Sri Lakshman provided the lyric in an instant! […]
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